Unexpected: Jobless Claims, Inflation and Deficit All Rise

I can’t wait for the headlines on November 7 declaring how Mitt Romney “unexpectedly” beat Barack Obama in a landslide.

Consumer prices fell in May by the most in over three years as households paid less for gasoline, possibly giving the U.S. Federal Reserve more room to help an economy that is showing signs of weakening.

Showing signs of weakening? Uh, we’ve been showing signs for four years now.

Jobless claims also rose more than expected, climbing to 386,000 for the week, while the current account deficit also expanded.

The Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index dropped 0.3 percent last month after being flat in April. May’s decline was the sharpest since December 2008 although analysts polled by Reuters expected a bigger decline.

Outside the volatile food and energy category, inflationpressure appeared to be modest. Core CPI climbed 0.2 percent higher as expected, matching the increase posted in April.

The U.S. current account deficit widened more than expected in the first quarter to $137.3 billion, the largest gap since fourth quarter 2008, a government report said on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, government data on Thursday showed, suggesting persistent weakness in the labor market after stumbling badly in recent months.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 386,000, the Labor Department said. The prior week’s figure was revised up to 380,000 from the previously reported 377,000.

I love the upward revision on the previous weekly number. Last week the score was something like 55 out of the last 56 weeks revised upward. Over a year, anyway — I disremember exactly.

At some point we are going to unexpectedly find that the Bureau of Labor Statistics employees are a bunch of card carrying public labor union members who have been just making these numbers right the hell up.

How come every one of these forcasts all turn out to be worse than “expected”, and all the deviations are in a direction that temporarily helps Obama. And every time an actual data point is “revised” after the fact, that “revision” is also in a direction that says things were actually worse than originally reported. Once the “unexpected” occurs often enough, especially if the “unexpected” always is biased on one direction, it is time to start revising your forecasts to plan for the “unexpected”. If these forecasters keep this up, somebody needs to be fired. And hopefully, after Obama is fired, somebody will be. Its gotten so I can’t trust a single number this administration produces, even from supposedly non-partisan agencies, like the bureau of labor statistics and the fed.